Took off a couple of times with my door unlatched in a 412, tired, careless, overheated and overworked,(but happy
). Surreptitiously shut door in climb, no problem.
Had a right door open in a Hughes/Schweiser/Sikorski/whatever /369/500 which at 135knots, with three hours on type, solo, in marginal weather, somewhere in England, did concentrate the mind a little.Fortunately the wee racing pigeon is quite easy to slow down to 60ish and long arms and lots of multi tasking at cocktail parties provided the necessary skill level to wrestle it closed . The subsequent openings every time we went faster than the door opening imp was prepared to tolerate were quite anti-climatic.
I am very sorry that the distraction of an open door should apparently lead to such an accident, but what a reminder to us all that whatever else is going on FLY THE ALLITERATIVE AIRCRAFT.